Spire of Sorcery

It’s been a few weeks since we posted a new issue of development diary here, as we’ve been all very busy with loads of things happening on different fronts. We hope that you missed us as much as we missed you!

Our work on Spire of Sorcery just passed the road sign that says:

CLOSED BETA: THIS WAY =>

When I asked our game design team a month ago if we will reach the closed beta stage any time soon, they told me “No”.

And when I asked them the same question this week, their answer changed to “Soon”. Which is a huge change for the better!

In my experience, only the game design team can estimate how close we really are to the release, because they know how things work on the inside. We might already have visual assets for “dead disciples” and “thunderstorm event”, but what really matters is whether or not these concepts exist in the game’s code.

So how soon is this “soon”, really?

We currently think that we will enter the closed beta stage between 6 and 8 weeks from now, that is – around late June/early July. As to Early Access release, this depends entirely on what sort of feedback do we get during the closed beta period.

Perhaps players will be happy enough, and we will just fix some bits and pieces before shipping the product. Or, perhaps, players will hit a wall somewhere in the user interface that will trigger a re-make of a significant part of it – in which case this will take at least a couple of months to reach Early Access.

What happens next, then?

First of all, we now start to prepare for the beta on the game’s official Discord server[discord.gg]. In the following days we will start showing parts of the user interface to collect player feedback, and onboard people into invitation-only channels specific to the beta.

Secondly, we just set up a dedicated forum[spireofsorcery.com] that we will use to collect player feedback on the beta. So, if you would like to participate, then please head over and register your profile there!

We’ll be back next week with the details of skill icons (which we finally finalized!), and as always, every Friday we’re here, on Steam, live-streaming the current build of the game.

Sometimes people ask about our plans for the Early Access period: what exactly is going to happen during that time with the game, and how long do we expect that period to last?

Our current expectation is to spend about a year in Early Access, depending on how quickly we exhaust all major opportunities to significantly improve your player experience. As long as we see the potential for significant improvements, we will remain in the Early Access state.

As to what do we plan to do – there are three big areas that we expect to focus on:

user interface and localization. Our experience shows that the community will definitely discover parts of the interface that can be improved, as well as parts of translations that can be more precise.

Even with Gremlins, Inc., a game that is three years old, we keep receiving excellent suggestions on adding certain elements to make the experience better. Not to mention the occasions where we introduce a new card and immediately hear from the community a suggestion for a better name for such card.

modding tools. One of our biggest ambitions with Spire of Sorcery is to empower the community by providing an easy-to-use editor that allows creative people to try new things with this game.

Whether it’s about new game events or about new types of skills or new types of rooms in the Spire, we’d like to give the community the opportunity to experiment. And we have no doubts that some of the funniest and original experiences will come through modding!

more content. At the moment, for every creature that we already have in the game, we have two more creatures on the designer’s board – waiting for their chance to come to life.

Because we do not know yet how you, dear players, will play the main campaign, we leave a lot of things open for the moment, to have the ability to fine-tune and balance the game in the Early Access period through adding new creatures and new resources.

And now let’s talk about today’s topic: Hills and Plains of Rund!

HILLS & PLAINS

When we started working on the Hills, we tried different options.

Hills is a biome that offers long-range visibility but is not so easy to pass through due to all the climbing up and down that one has to do as one travels across the region. Because of this, in terms of speed of travel, hills are comparable to the regular forest.

Plains are much easier to pass through and offer a high speed of travel (even though roads would be still faster).

This is the final color sketch of the Hills. What you’ll see in the game is the same image, but with a bit more details.

Tasljuks, Gigglers and Stingtails live in both of these biomes.

Stingtails pose a risk if encountered during their feeding time. Such risk is significantly higher on the plains (because there’s nowhere to hide from this predator).

Plains were quite easy to conceptualize. Finding the right color for this biome proved to be much harder.

Because of the long-range visibility, traveling through plains poses the risk of being easily spotted by unwanted parties who also travel through these lands. The risk is, however, smaller in the Wild Lands, where there are no villages or cities, but only occasional camps of outcasts (closer to the Distorted lands one may also encounter mutant camps and settlements).

Hills are mostly used for mining (they are home to a wealth of minerals: almost every mineral known in Rund can be found there). Hills also often contain caves, some of which may have explorable sub-locations.

Here are the first three color solutions for plains that we explored. We did not like any of these.

Most of the plants on hills and on plains are rather common for Rund, with a few exceptions. Dwarf everlast can be found only on Hills. Sleep grass, thorn apple and thistle can be found only on Plains (sleep grass, by the way, poses a danger of its own: unsuspecting travelers that cross the fields of this grass during its flowering season can fall asleep for much longer than desired, leaving them defenseless against the other common dangers of the biome).

Going through three more color options, we really liked the last one, number six. You’ll see it in the game, with a bit more detail.

Finally, we think that both plains and hills will eventually get their own unique non-human dwellers and animals (hills are quite likely going to become the home of Stone Eaters) – but that will happen much later in the development process, once we come around to balancing these regions during long runs of the main campaign of the game.

Here’s work in progress (and final results) on two inventory items relevant to these biomes. The first is a Giggler’s Egg, which can be collected from the nests of these animals. It’s used as food (when cooked), as well as an alchemic ingredient. The second is an exotic fruit, which grows in abandoned gardens left from the Age of Mages. These gardens can only be found on the plains of the Wild Lands. The fruit is a delicacy on its own, and is also used to prepare more elaborate food rations.

Some biomes are easy to compare, while others are special and stand on their own. Waterfronts are in the latter category. What are waterfronts? It’s rivers and lakes – places with abundant water and shorelines.

Waterfronts was one of the first biomes that we created for the game. Initially, we struggled a bit with finding the right scale of the biome – just how much of the area must we show?

At this time, all the lakes in the game are impassable while all the rivers can be crossed over. A crossing may take anywhere between a day and a week (for example, a party may decide to build a raft) – depending on who is in the party, what are their skills and what events the party faces as it attempts the crossing.

Eventually, we settled on a particular perspective that worked for both lakes and rivers.

Dangerous events at the waterfronts include death from drowning, being pulled in by a strong current, getting attacked by underwater animals and losing some of the party’s inventory items as it struggles with wading the waters, as well as catching illness from long exposure to cold water (if a character is inclined to fall sick easily).

The overall feeling of this biome is that of a place with abundant water.

Bridges provide a convenient way of crossing the rivers: not only fast (just an hour), but also safe from the dangers related to open water. At the same time, bridges may be guarded by garrisons, and in general are a place with a higher probability of encountering other parties, which poses a different set of risks.

As we started to work on the color concept, we explored different hues of water.

What helps with crossing the rivers as well with using the waterfront biome in general? Having a high Travel skill as well as having the secondary skills of Swimming (belongs to Travel) and Fishing (belongs to Monstrology). Swimming helps cross rivers faster and safer.

And when a character’s Travel skill is high enough, they can even cast a temporary magic bridge over the water, made of ice (such bridge holds for a time sufficient for the party to cross over, then dissolves in the river).

Finally, we had the “flowing” image that everyone on the team liked. Here you can see how a color concept turned into the final asset that you will see in the game, as lots of details were added.

The easiest use of the waterfront biome is fishing. A more challenging ambition is to harvest pearls that are extracted from snarers (pearls, like precious stones, can be sold or traded in towns and villages). Waterfronts are also a source of lake nettles, a stinging plant that is nevertheless a useful alchemic ingredient.

Some of the resources that can be collected in waterfronts.

Mermaids are currently the only non-human dweller to live in waterfronts. If you succeed in negotiating with them, then you can have them provide you with both nettles and pearls, taking away from your parties the risk of extracting these resources.

However, originally mermaids are not too friendly. Unlike drowners, they don’t need a “god” to worship, and thus are harder to convince to cooperate. On their own, they like to play with humans (regardless of age or gender: mermaids are long-lived hermaphrodites and don’t distinguish between different humans), with most of such games ending in drownings – hence their bad reputation with human settlements, who see them as a threat to young or naïve.

You can choose to trade with mermaids, or you can choose to hunt them and use their tentacles as a valuable alchemic ingredient.

Mermaids are a source of “mermaid tentacle”, an alchemic ingredient that you might eventually require. But killing a mermaid opens a direct confrontation with the species, driving up the chances of having your parties attacked during any future waterfront visits or crossings.

Waterfronts are one of the biomes that we plan to further expand during the Early Access period, as we have a few more creatures specific to this biome that are already designed but not yet in production as we wait for the main campaign to be complete before balancing the world with such additions.

Recently, we started working on the Encyclopedia of Rund: a comprehensive guide to the world that will be available in the game for your reference.

Some chapters of the Encyclopedia are already fully open at start (for example: the description of Rund’s factions and the basics of spellcasting) while others keep expanding as you explore the world (for example: all the chapters that describe creatures, biomes and inventory items).

As we worked on the Encyclopedia, it dawned on me that, finally, everything starts to come together in the game. Now you can read about a certain potion and click through to see its recipe; then open a list of ingredients that offer the required alchemic properties, choose one in particular and follow through to where it can be foraged or mined; then proceed to read about the specific biome and the risks associated with going there.

Each separate element occupies its appropriate place in the overall scheme of things, so that you can explore Rund from multiple directions (though there is still a ton of work left to properly edit and translate all these descriptions in all the languages that the game will support at the time of launch in Early Access).

In one of the future posts, we will review the Encyclopedia and its structure to give you a better idea of what it is. Meanwhile, today I’d like to tell you about the swamps of Rund.

SWAMPS OF RUND

Except for the biomes found in the Distorted Lands, swamps are the biome that’s the most challenging to traverse. Even ancient forests are easier to pass through, than swamps.

When we started working on the concept of this biome, the most difficult thing to do was to show the proper scale of trees in the environment.

When a party travels through swamps, there’s always a chance of getting trapped in a bog. When several disciples travel together, a friend can lend a hand to the person that got unlucky. When someone travels alone, though, getting sucked into a swamp means certain death.

After several sketches, we arrived at the look and feel that we were aiming for: a place that’s challenging to traverse, full of hidden dangers.

Because swamps are damp and cold places, prolonged travel through swamp will result in disciples falling sick – unless the party carries certain potions and ointments used to prevent such consequences.

Once we started working on the colors of the swamp, we explored different directions.

Another risk of traveling through swamps is their poisonous flora and fauna: there’s mosquitos (who can carry diseases), there’s earth leeches (generally, not fatally dangerous – except when characters are already weak or wounded), and there’s a number of plants that can sting when touched or poison when consumed.

[/i]This is an almost finished color version of the biome. In the game, you’ll see the same image – just with a few more details added between now and the release in Early Access.[/i]

With swamps, travel equipment becomes critical to the successful crossing. While having travel boots, travel coats and bedrolls to be used when camping is a nice bonus for navigating through both regular and ancient forests, this equipment is an absolute must for traveling through swamps in order to prevent negative events.

Good travel equipment is the best way to prevent bad things from happening to your party.

What else can help in the swamp? Having a high Travel skill as well as the secondary skill of Survival.

Generally speaking, swamps are a dangerous to be. And because of animals and monsters that reside there, during the night swamps become even more dangerous.

Among the monsters that inhabit the swamps, there’s the Swamp Beast: a loner that controls a certain zone around its home. Sometimes, non-humans like drowners would worship such beasts, and would bring them various valuable items as their offerings. In such cases, defeating the beast will result in discovering a substantial stash of loot accumulated over the years.

Speaking of Drowners, they were created as hunters and are generally not aggressive towards humans. However, if attacked, they will retaliate.

While the Swamp Beast is a dangerous monster, Drowners are generally neutral towards humans.

Why would anyone in their right mind venture into the swamps, then? To obtain rare resources, is the answer. Arcanite (a mineral) can only be found at the bottom of the swamp, and mandragora grows exclusively in this biome, too.

Swamps may contain numerous points of interests, including Ruins and Idols, and even Sources. While Sources and Idols are beneficial to the supply of magic energy for your Spire, Ruins are a good source of loot (they may hold items as well as chests, and also be inhabited by various creatures).

Some of the points of interest that you may come across when traveling through the swamps of Rund.

Overall, you may feel like swamps are a challenging biome – but that’s only before you decide to venture east, into the Distorted Lands, where you’ll run into much more dangerous situations. In swamps, with sufficient Travel and Survival skills and with solid travel equipment and a supply of potions and ointments, feeding itself by fishing, hunting and foraging for mushrooms, a party may very well execute numerous quests with great success.

Many thanks to those of you who warmly welcomed Nikita, our new team member, with their comments on the last week’s blog! It makes a huge difference when you feel connected to the community. When we create games, we focus on the assets first (code, visuals, texts) – but the ultimate goal is always the user experience.

For sure, we want to make the best art possible, and write the fastest and cleanest code that we can write. However, we judge our studio’s success or failure based on the emotions and experiences that our players get through our games. As such, the community is at the center of our work. Like a chef at a restaurant’s kitchen, we keep sneaking a peek into the dining hall to see if people are happy or sad, when they eat the food that we cook for them.

Today, let’s talk about one of the twenty biomes currently in the game: the Caves of Rund.

CAVES OF RUND

Caves are an underground biome that exists within another biome: they can be found in the hills.

“As we started to search for the required “look and feel” of the caves, we focused on presenting their size – which can be huge, as caves can contain multiple sub-locations.”

Caves are an explorable point of interest. Once your party of disciples discovers a cave on the map, they will need to explore it in order to locate possible sub-locations there (in this, Caves are similar to another biome – Ruins, which also require exploration in order to discover possible sub-locations that exist there).

Exploration of Caves happens faster (i.e. with more success) if the party that explores them, has someone with the skill of Geology.

“We ended up with this sketch, which in our opinion delivered all the right impressions. The next step was to find the right colors of this underground biome.”

One of the things of interest that can be found in Caves is chests. Earlier, we showed different versions of chests that exist in Rund. Because chests are very heavy, in most cases your party will have to deal with opening (and disarming) them right on the spot, as the spell of levitation requires pretty advanced skill of Travel Magic (as well as considerable magic energy to use it).

“Here are the three color options of the biome that we explored, among many others. We also played around with just how much light there should be in the distance. At the bottom are the various types of chests that can be found there.”

Caves can also hold deposits of minerals. Some minerals are easier to collect than others. For heavy-duty work, having a secondary skill of Mining is very valuable.

“This is the final version of Caves that you will see in the game, as well as some of the minerals that can be mined there.”

Caves can be populated with Creepers, which presents a certain challenge to a party that wants to camp there.

Stingtails are also known to use Caves to sleep there during the daytime, so when exploring a new cave, the party runs a risk of being attacked by such a group – if the cave is occupied by them at the time of exploration.

The caves feature two kinds of non-humans:

Sometimes, Pale Ones will have their dwelling set up in a cave. They are nearly impossible to negotiate with, but can be subjugated.

More often, Cyclops would inhabit a cave. Being a more intelligent species, Cyclops can be traded with – as well as negotiated with.

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And this is it for today! See you next week – and don’t forget that every Friday, we run a stream here on Steam, showing the current development build of the game. The recordings of this stream can be found on the studio’s YouTube channel.